Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello. Welcome to the call it like I see it podcast.
I'm James Keys, and in this episode of call it like I see it, we're going to discuss fascism, which is a term that comes up from time to time when we see what people believe is government overreached. Overreach. But it's a term that is probably overused. And because of that, there's some danger that go along with the fact that it's being overused. And we'll get into that. And later on, we're going to take a look at Ozempic and the class of weight loss drugs that seem to be upending our understanding of how weight loss and obesity relate to willpower and exercise and also causing a lot of people to lose a lot of weight.
Joining me today is a man who is always ready to crank things up. Tunde Ogun. Lana Tunde. Are you ready to show us why you're the guy with money in the bank?
[00:01:13] Speaker B: No. Cause then you're gonna know I have money in the bank. So I'm gonna give away your secret. Remember, I'm stealth, man. I'm like an f 35. I just wanna show up and just drop bombs on you without anyone noticing.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: There we go.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: There we go. I'll let other guys beat the loud army tank and shooting gun, you know.
[00:01:31] Speaker A: All right, now we're recording this on August 21, 2023. And on fascism, the first thing I wanted to note here is that, I mean, obviously, the nature of our discussion, everything that you hear described as fascist or, you know, stuff like that, everything, everyone that's a fascist or things that are fascism, that stuff's not always fascism. And I, beyond just, like, the slanderous way it's used, you know, to say, oh, this is fascism. This person's fascist, or whatever. A big problem that can come when a term is overused like that and, you know, is that it can essentially become a slur and lose the meaning to people. And so when that happens, if fascist stuff actually starts happening and you call it out as fascism, it's not gonna really have any effect, you know, because the meaning is lost. It's just like, oh, you're just saying that that person's bad, or you're just saying that you don't like that thing. And so you get into a dangerous situation where things can be happening, and there's a name for those things, yet the name for those, you can't even use the name to call them those things. So we're going to get into what fascism actually is. And you know, just some examples of what we see out there in historical and, you know, in the modern day. And to get us started tunday now, as I said, we see the word fascism thrown around a lot. But what specific characteristics do you associate with fascism, you know, and how is that just different from aggressive politics or something like that?
[00:02:55] Speaker B: Yeah, this is a great question. And, you know, it's difficult without throwing a bunch of pejoratives around to really define this one because it seems, or.
[00:03:05] Speaker A: Things that are considered pejorative in our society or have been historically conceived, you know, seen as pejorative.
[00:03:11] Speaker B: Like you said, it seems like everybody who doesn't like their opponent will end up calling them fascists at some point. So that means, or if they don't.
[00:03:18] Speaker A: Like something, somebody remember during the pandemic everything that was happening.
[00:03:21] Speaker B: Oh, that's fascist.
[00:03:22] Speaker A: That's fascist. It's like, what?
[00:03:24] Speaker B: So, yeah, it's just one of those that I think.
And what's interesting in preparing for today's show, I think there's a reason for that, is because fascism as a kind of political, whether you want to call it a movement or a political way of being, in a sense, the way a society can organize itself, let's put it that way. A large society has clearly been tried. The most famous example is Mussolini, who started the fascist party in Italy in 1919. So he was, you know, definitely he was the first politician to overtly say, I'm going this direction. However, I think basically from what we'll get into today and just explain there is a reason why fascist governments don't seem to survive that long. And I think fascism, what I found fascinating and just preparing is, and we'll get into it more. I know is fascism is really an offshoot of the modernization kind of post industrial age, post World War one.
Just like Marxism and communism were also manifestations of the industrial age, so was fascism. And it's just these are different ways that people sought to respond to the initial booms and busts of the 19th century industrial age.
[00:04:47] Speaker A: You know, add something to that, I'll let you keep going. But, yeah, the thing that's really interesting to me is how fascism and socialism can be seen almost as extremes in terms of, now, again, socialism is another one of these words. Like when I say socialism, that doesn't mean, oh, you have a public police department, so you're a socialist or you have public roads, so you're socialist. I'm talking about real socialism where there's no private ownership of capital. Yeah. And so when you have, like, socialism is an extreme when you're looking at it like that, like, hey, we are going, the state's going to own everything. That's an extreme. Fascism is also an extreme. And historically, like our country is what has played in the middle more. So, you know, the liberalism kind of thing is more in the middle of those liberalism slash to some degree free enterprise and things like that. But go ahead.
[00:05:33] Speaker B: Yeah. And what's interesting about fascism and this kind of, I think there's a distinction I'll make in a minute about fascism versus authoritarianism. There's actually some distinctions between them, but.
[00:05:47] Speaker A: I think, which are key to the post industrial age, actually.
[00:05:50] Speaker B: Yeah, correct. That's what I mean. And it's pretty fascinating that fascism is very distinct on its own, where authoritarianism is something we've seen throughout history.
But to really get into what seem to be the ingredients, let's put it that way, that could make up a fascist kind of situation. You know, you would, you would have to say the cult of personality.
That's part of it. That's not necessarily got to be a part of authoritarianism.
Fascist movements tend to be revolutionary, which is their whole purpose is to upend the existing order, which again, an authoritarian. You know, you could say that the saudi royal family is authoritarian, but they're not revolutionary. You know what I mean? They're, there, MBS isn't sitting there trying to upend his own family's rule in.
[00:06:41] Speaker A: The society, so, or change everything that everybody is doing. In fact, they're more rigid, trying to keep everything is as it was correct years ago or a hundred years ago, at least in terms of culturally.
[00:06:52] Speaker B: And that's the, the other one, which is important, which, which to your point wouldn't be what MBS would try to do. Right. Is what they call popular mobilization, which is, and that's why as separate to, let's say, just authoritarianism, fascism always involves some sort of populism, a movement. So it's almost like you need the movement, the reason why people are disturbed or upset. So in Italy, it was post World War one by 1919. And Mussolini was able to manifest those emotions. Hitler and Germany in the thirties was similar. And we have people now playing on emotions of people around the world in whatever countries. So it's an interesting combination.
[00:07:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think it's a combination of a lot of things. And so I think because of that, it's, sometimes that's why it can get overused because like you said, there is an authoritarian kind of autocratic way of being. And that's usually based around like a dictatorial leader who, as you pointed out, has the cult of personality so that you can see in other forms of government, you know, just a king or, you know, a central ruler or whatever that holds all the power. Like, you see that, you know, suppression of opposition, you know, like, which in contrast to liberal governments where you're supposed to have, you know, freedom of speech and things like that, just because you speak out against the government, you shouldn't get locked up well in a fascist state. That's not how it works. Like, you forcible suppression of your, of people who are against you.
It's also very hierarchical, you know, in terms of how it operates. And there's, there's a hierarchy of, okay, this group of people is above everyone else or this gender is above everyone else. And you can see that in other, again, all of these things are things that you can see in other types of ideologies or other types of ways of organizing society. But the way fascism puts them all together in a way, you know, I thought one of the things that really stood out to me was you mentioned that I wanted to just touch on a little bit more is how it does involve, it's not a leader saying, like, and a lot of authoritarian type regimes. The leader says, I got this. And, you know, we're just going to do what we need to do, you guys, you know, the people can, you know, kind of, everybody lives their, quote unquote miserable life or their normal life. And the leaders got all the, everything under control. You don't have to worry about the government, so to speak. The leader has his people and everything like that. Whereas fascism, as you said it, there is a group of people that are brought in and felt like they're, they're, they're party members or, you know, if you look at the nazi party or whatever and, and the different organizations that can be in that, and this group of people are heavily involved in making things happen and making, like, the society move in the direction of the fascism or whatever. One of the interesting examples was Mussolini when he actually was appointed prime minister.
He didn't have the majority in his country yet in the parliament, but he had enough. And then there was belief he had riled up his supporters in the country enough that they thought there was going to be a civil war if the people who ended up working with his party to put him as the prime minister, they thought there'd be a civil war if he wasn't put in power. So, so the people were a really big part and how fired up the people were was a very big part of how he rose to power and how he maintained power, you know, because that ends up getting into the black shirts and all that other kind of stuff.
[00:10:10] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think that actually is something that, I'm glad you went there because I omitted that from my initial kind of bullet points, which is one that I can't believe I forgot, which is the use of violence being accepted as a political remedy when that's what I.
[00:10:27] Speaker A: When I said the forcible suppression of opposition. Yeah, I'm glad you fleshed that out a little bit more because that's the category that, that falls under. But that sounds kind of benign. You know, we're talking about actually threats, intimidation and violence as part of the normal toolkit of how you are supposed to implement and enact the things that.
[00:10:48] Speaker B: Yeah. And let's be clear, the reason why violence and threats are used as a political tool by fascists. I think that's one of the things that also is unique about fascism is that it's kind of known that this is how they're gonna operate because that's.
[00:11:07] Speaker A: Not unique about fascism, though. That's something you'll see that in a lot of. Well, what I mean by systems.
[00:11:12] Speaker B: Well, but what I mean by that is because fascism, at least in, again, like we've said, right. It hasn't really, it's flourished in systems that were, before the fascism started, democratic. That's what I'm saying. And it's different than, let's say, going back. I don't want to keep picking on Saudi Arabia, but they're an easy example. Just because they're a monarchy that's authoritarian.
If their religious police, you know, beats them on the street for not complying with whatever, you know, the law is there. That is violence, but there is no real political system there. You see what I'm saying? Whereas fascists use violence in order to dominate the existing democratic system. And that's why initially, like you said.
[00:11:55] Speaker A: Well, they do it all the time, but that's one of the ways they initially kind of get in. One thing that you said there, I want to pull out real quick, which is very interesting, is that at least in the example, a lot of the examples we've seen historically, how fascism is something that evolves out of democratic.
[00:12:09] Speaker B: Yeah. That's key.
[00:12:11] Speaker A: And that's one of the ways that it happens. So it happens with, sometimes with there's, there's people getting elected, you know, famously Hitler was elected, you know, like, but then, you know, these, these means, like I said, part of the toolkit, once you get in power to get into power, and then once you get in power to maintain power, it expanded. It's not debate. You know, it's like, okay, yeah, this person is talking. We need to intimidate this person. We need to threaten this person. Like that's part of the normal and accepted way that they're going to operate.
[00:12:37] Speaker B: No, but think about what we're saying. Right? Like you said, there's a great point about Mussolini, that part of the reason why the other elites acquiesce to him, even though he had a minority in terms of at least the minority of numbers in support, was because they feared violence. So it was the intimidation.
It was the threat that if, you know what? If you guys don't let us in here, we're going to blow this whole thing up.
[00:13:03] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. It was right after the march on Rome, the mass administration.
[00:13:09] Speaker B: That's not new, and it's not, and it's not unique to Italy, but it is something that democracies, that's my point. Democracies generally don't welcome that. Right? Because democracy, the whole point of a liberal democracy and why it's a threat to fascism is because solving problems, solving problems is done through debate in either parliament or in the United States and vote, you know, the House of representatives in the Senate. So. And people voting. Correct.
[00:13:39] Speaker A: So if you count votes, you could win or lose. And fascists, by their belief system, their hierarchical belief system, their consolidation of power, they're not in it to lose elections. It's like the only election is only happening if we're gonna win.
[00:13:52] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:13:53] Speaker A: So one of the other things, though, that, and before I, when I do want to move to the next section, and that gets into how, in these fascist systems, the slide that goes from democracy. And we have things that we're going to put into the show notes that really have some more reading. One of them from the council for relations. And they talk about, actually, there's five stages that some academics, I want to give credit to. The guy, um, Robert Paxton is a historian, and he talks about the five stages of fascism. And I know you want to touch on this, but let's touch on it briefly. But just in terms of how you could, like, it's almost charted out how a country can go from a democratic system. Now, how open that democratic system is, is a matter of, you know, that can change. But a democratic system, a system where people argue, people run, and then people win and lose elections and so forth, and you lose election, you just move on. You don't, you know, say, oh, I have to win, you know, so to speak. And to see it mapped out like that is very interesting because that allows you to draw parallels, draw things that you can say, okay, well, this is similar to this or this is similar to that, or this is distinct from there because again, the piece about the fascism is it's a specific mix of things, you know, and that's where, that's the biggest takeaway I wanted to really have here is that you have this mix of things. It's not all one thing. It's not just a straight dictatorship because a dictatorship, as we said, doesn't really necessarily have to involve the, the masses in their exercise of power. They can have their secret police and their, you know, they're the military and they don't need the people. People just need to shut up. But fascism is a big part of that, you know. And so, but, yeah. Any comments on the five stages or anything else before we move to the next section?
[00:15:38] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I actually think this is a segue to the next section. So I'll mention them and then pass it back for you to take us there. So the first is that fascism kind of begins and emerges out of a sense of disillusionment for the population. So it's easy. Like we said about 1919, obviously a lot of european countries were reeling from the damage and all that and the poverty caused by the first World War. And then the same thing. What Hitler was able to spark in the german people in the thirties was their disillusionment about the reparations they had to pay and the 13% of the german land they had to give back to european neighbors. And what they felt was a disrespect, you know, to their country and their, and their, their group.
[00:16:24] Speaker A: And a key piece of that, by the way, is it's not disillusionment of 100% of the people in the population. It only has to be a disillusionment of a, it can be a minority, but it has to be a minority that is either active or a minority that is forceful kind of in the way. They're very upset, you know, like not just, not just on the fence, but that's, I think because a lot of times like, oh, well, is the whole society disillusioned? Well, maybe, but everybody's not going to go this direction. But what you need is you need that level of disillusionment present for then someone to be able to jump on and take advantage of yep.
[00:16:56] Speaker B: And so then the next is establishing legitimacy as a political party. So a good example would be the nazi party that was established in the early twenties. And remember, Hitler marched first on Berlin and Reichstag in 19, or the parliament, I should say, in 1925. And he spent time. He got arrested. And, like their version of January 6 back then. And then he came back, and eight years later, he was the chancellor. Right?
[00:17:22] Speaker A: So hopefully not their version of January.
[00:17:24] Speaker B: He was 6th. That's all different conversation. But the idea is that he was serious about having a political party and a position, you know? And so it's like. Like we talked about, right? It's not like he said, I'm gonna come from the side and create something new. He said, no, I'm gonna go in and infiltrate this parliament, this democracy, and then just take it over.
[00:17:46] Speaker A: And one interesting thing there, I'll add, is that in a parliamentary system, a lot of times this can be when you establish your legitimacy as a political party, it can be you create a party or you take a party that's obscure and then you. You build them up, you know, because in a parliamentary system, you have a lot of parties operating at all times. And remember, it's after the voting, after the parliament is seated, that the governing coalitions are formed. The coalitions are formed after the voting and the elections. But in a two party system, for example, that necessarily wouldn't work because the coalitions between the different interest groups are formed before the election. They. All these coalitions get together and say, okay, I'm a d or I'm an r or whatever. It is interesting to me is that in these type of stages, in a democratic system like the one in the United States, it might not play out with a political party from the outside comes in, it may play out with a part of a coalition of one of the parties, decides to go this direction and can bring the rest of the party along with them.
[00:18:44] Speaker B: Yep. Let's see if that's possible as we continue this conversation. So then the third one, and I'll speed it up so we can keep moving. The third one is gaining power via right wing partnerships. So to me, that was, you know, controlling the media, for example. And if you think about, again, going back to the Hitler example, you had Joseph Goebbels, who was like the propaganda minister, and you have, you know, think.
[00:19:06] Speaker A: About Russia and also the industrialists, the elites in those areas as well.
[00:19:11] Speaker B: And that's what I was going to say about the controlling of media. So you think about countries like China and Russia today. That the authoritarian leader feels the need to always control the narrative. And then to your point, we hear about this more in Russia than China, but it still exists in China. The idea of oligarchs, these people that are just wealthy from kind of maybe natural resource companies, things like that, and then they are in partnership with the leaders of the state.
[00:19:40] Speaker A: Well, their position as an oligarch depends on their continued allegiance to the state. But one of the things with this also is it's specified here in the material we're talking about. That is right wing partnerships. And that's nothing like, again, keep in mind that fascism is an extreme right wing. Like that's, that's going, if you keep going out on the spectrum from just a center right position, then you get to fascism. Just like if you keep going out to the other direction from a center left position, you'll get to, again, not a pejorative but a socialism system. Like with no private capital, you get all the way out there. So fascism itself, we're talking about an extreme, but it's an extreme on the right.
[00:20:16] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's, and it's, and I think to your point, both fascisms and socialism, or let's say communism maybe at the extreme level are both extremes that developed post industrial age. They're extreme visions of how to deal with this organization of mass populations and.
[00:20:37] Speaker A: This response to things that were happening, you know, like socialism evolving out of, yeah. The gilded age. And I, people seeing, oh, well, basically one person is going to end up with all the money and so it, you know, it evolves out of that. But it's an extreme evolution. It's not. The new deal, for example, is a center left evolution to seeing that problem. Whereas socialism is just like, hey, let's just, we're just going to take away all the money, but go ahead.
These last two and.
[00:21:04] Speaker B: Yeah, so I was going to say I'll hit them quick. Using the number four is using power to dominate institutions. So we'll come back to that. And then the fifth one is implementing radical reforms.
[00:21:12] Speaker A: So, yeah, I've got, no, actually are similar in the sense that you're using power to dot. Like you, once you, once you get into power, you not just operating the government, but you want to control all a lot of aspects. It becomes more totalitarian. Yeah, totalitarian in that sense. And then you implementing the radical reforms is just, then you use the power that you have to make sure that you maintain power or make sure that your ideology is only thing that's taught and so forth. So the next thing that we wanted to get to kind of in this conversation is just have to be quick. Here is just to kind of what examples, you know, like modern day, you know, in the US today, even, you know, like, of where we see, like, fascist type actors or a fascist type agenda that may be unfolding.
[00:21:53] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a good question. I mean. I mean, I'll get to the US in a second. I was just thinking internationally, because before reading this, I thought that Russia would be a good example of more of a fascist nation currently. And I actually wouldn't put them in that category, really. And I would probably put North Korea more in that category. And what I found interesting was thinking of the difference to contrast an authoritarian leader versus a fascist leader. I thought of China with Xi.
[00:22:23] Speaker A: And just for the record, a fascist system will have an authoritarian leader. It's just authoritarian plus other stuff. Correct. The cult of personality.
[00:22:32] Speaker B: Well, that's what I was going to say with Xi, because he doesn't seem to have the cult of personality like Kim Jong un or some of the other, whereas, like, China truly is. Seems to be more mature about their existence. Like, okay, we're the great chinese empire. Maybe this is our leader now. We got to pay deference to him, but he won't be around again. What's more important is China.
[00:22:51] Speaker A: Whereas in North Korea, they're, like, talking about how the grand leader shoots like a 36 in golf, all this superhuman stuff.
[00:23:01] Speaker B: I think his dad invented the hamburger. Everything. That's really part of the. That's what I also captured, too, is some of the stuff that fascism begins to require alternative facts and an alternative reality bubble, because the leader can do no wrong.
[00:23:17] Speaker A: The leader has.
[00:23:17] Speaker B: Well, and like we said, too, that once part of the number three, gaining power via right wing partnerships, you know, when you start controlling the ecosystems and the business elites, then the only way for people to survive is to agree with you, which no one is always right 100% of the time. So you have to then start making up stuff, keep everyone in line as to why the leader is so great.
[00:23:40] Speaker A: But the cult of personality is just fascinating to me with Trump, and I know you had circulated the poll that had been making its rounds, that Trump, more people of Trump voters, they trust him more than they trust their friends and family and religious leaders and so forth.
[00:23:57] Speaker B: And that 71% said they feel that what he tells you is true, meaning Donald Trump.
And they have family and friends at 63% and religious leaders at 42%. Yeah, so this is truly is. And that's why I don't want to sound, like, pejorative about this or just like we're joking. Like, I think the world word cult is like, the word fascism has been beat to death, and people use it all the time just to be a pejorative on anything. But there is a definition of a cult, right? I mean, there, there is when you lose your kind of reason and ration and you're saying, okay, 71% of people who answered this poll believe Trump over their own family and friends and over their own pastors and preachers. That's just interesting because I'm gonna assume unless it's his kids or his family or close friends, these 71% people who said him over everyone else, never even met him, but they met their family and they met their pastor.
[00:24:56] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, that's amazing. Like, they only know him through media channels.
[00:24:59] Speaker B: That's how many. So it's fascinating. Yeah.
[00:25:01] Speaker A: And so, but to me, the thing that really, in reading all these materials, because, again, it clarifies, even for myself, for you, you know, it clarifies. Okay, what are we talking about here when we're talking about fascism? And I would say, you know, when you look at voter suppression, when you look at. Which is an issue I'm sensitive to, you know, like, I see that, and that offends me that there are so many voter suppression efforts and that, you know, like, when you have the voting rights act and then it's getting hollowed out by the Supreme Court and we've seen all these efforts, I could think you can make the case that the GOP has slid in an authoritarian direction post probably the southern strategy. Once you bring in all the guys who did Jim Crow, conceivably it makes sense that you might go in a direction that people are hostile to voting. But Trump is actually what makes this more. Gives us more of a fascist bent because there wasn't a cult of personality there, like it would be. Okay, well, is it George W. Bush? Cool. Then we'll roll with George W. Bush. Is it McCain? Cool. It wasn't until Trump came along that it was, like, only Trump, all the Trump, you know, everything like that. And so that cult of personality arose. And so I wonder, just from a chicken and egg standpoint, like, did Trump come along and see a party that was ripe to be consolidated around him, or was the party just being. Was. Was going in a direction that was right to be consolidated around a person and Trump was the right guy at the right time? Because, like I said, part of the fascist fascism definition is that it has to revolve around a cult of personality or like a dictatorial type leader who has the people's hearts and minds and can get them to intimidate people and exert violence and all that kind of stuff on the name of him and the party, so to speak. So that piece, to me, it's an open question. I don't have the answer necessarily, but just how it's all coalesced over the last ten to twelve years or so is just very interesting to me to see because it's in a different place than it was in 2023 or 2023 as it was in 2003.
[00:26:56] Speaker B: Yeah. And one of the dangers, I think, of all of this kind of stuff, and let's hope that the american system does hold is because one of the things I learned in preparing is really, I think one of the reasons that fascism has never lasted as a political ideology for a long period of time in any specific government is, I think, several fold.
[00:27:15] Speaker A: One is large countries, though, because North Korea's had a system the way. But that's, it's a smaller uniform in terms of population. It's not diverse. But go ahead.
[00:27:27] Speaker B: Well, and also, I mean, the tragedies and horrors that they did to get it there in terms of how they exterminated so many of their own people and kind of kowtowed them to accepting that. And you're right. And then they have two partners in Russia and China that they can do trade with. So that helps them survive. But the real thing is, number one, like you mentioned, the suppression of the population, all that eventually does come back to bite the fascist government because usually, like we said, there's a minority of people who are into this stuff, and the majority is kind of on the outside. And after a while, they just, you know, end up revolting and, well, they're.
[00:28:01] Speaker A: Cool as long as they don't have to face consequences. Yeah, but once they have to start feeling, it's like, nah, you guys got to go. It burns hot. That's the thing.
[00:28:09] Speaker B: Well, and part of the reason is really what I learned is really economics is the misallocation of resources in the economy that is driven by the fascist way of being, in a sense, if we can keep saying that word. And the reason is, is because, number one, you have the cult of personality is necessary for fascism, which means you have a leader who's got these visions of grandiosity and generally is probably paranoid and doesn't like people that don't agree with them 100%. So what happens is they begin to put fear and anyone who doesn't agree with them and only bring in, it becomes cronyism. Right? And you don't get the best of and brightest minds. And one example, I mean, a little bit of a spoiler here, but the film Oppenheimer does a great job in, they say it through a couple jokes. Then they're like, yeah, well, the Nazis are going to lose the war. And they're like, the one guy's like, well, why? They're so advanced and this and that. And he just goes, because they hate Jews more than they want to win. And the whole joke was that they're kicking out scientists like Albert Einstein and these guys. And I kind of thought of it and I laughed, too. I'm thinking like, yeah, you had some of the brightest minds in the world were germane physicists. They just happen to be jewish. And to Hitler, it was more important to exterminate Jews than to win the war. So it was just like, so if you're going to think like that and approach a society like that and say, I'm not going to take the best and brightest. I'm going to try and compartmentalize everybody and do this and that, eventually there's going to be some sort of some other nation that is using the best and brightest.
[00:29:40] Speaker A: Well, but remember, though, that feeds into the hierarchical aspect, though, because in the fascist mind, those aren't the best and brightest. They can't be the best and brightest because they're not at the top of the hierarchy. And so it gives you a, it gives you a short sightedness that you see this a lot with racism. You see this with a lot with, with these isms types of things. It makes people inequit ill equipped to judge people by their character, to judge people by their actual ability and talent. Because you come in with such a preconceived notion on what somebody should be based on what they look like or based on what God they pray to or anything like that. But it actually handicaps you from being able to actually do real appraisals of people and say, okay, well, who is, we walk into a room, who is the smartest guy in this room? You're just looking for a guy that looks a certain way, and actually a smart person is looking to say, well, who's the one that is talking a certain way or who's the one that is behaving a certain way? That's how I'm going to figure out who the smartest guy is. So it handicaps you in a way, like you said, that would come back to bite. The other thing I'll mention, and I want to move to the next part is just what we're seeing within this film is an attorney. This offends me personally, but, I mean, it's offensive to just the nature of what we're trying to do here in a government of the people, by the people, for the people, is the violent and dehumanizing rhetoric. And a recent example of this was, was DeSantis vowing to start slitting throats when he gets into office. Like, and what you have there, you know, at least from what I'm seeing, is that he's mimicking what he thinks. The diehards, the diehards aren't with him right now, but he's mimicking what he thinks that they want gunning for that top spot. He wants to be the next guy in line, you know, for that top spot, to build the cursed cult of personality around himself. Now, he, whether he has it or not, is a whole, it being the charisma and all the other factors that it takes to become somebody like that, I don't know. But just the mimicking of that behavior because the violent rhetoric has been shown to be either acceptable or to the more moderate people or embraced to the more to the people that are more radical, you know, so that that's creeping in. And when you have death threats being common or, you know, just guys running up in the span homes of spouses of political people, like trying to throw them, hit him with hammers and stuff like that, like that type of stuff, that's a direction that does, that's going in the fascist direction, you know, like that, that violent suppression and the use of the intimidation and all that kind of stuff. Remember, January 6 was supposed to be an effort in intimidation. You have all that kind of stuff like, yeah, you guys better do what we want to do.
[00:32:06] Speaker B: Yeah, that's where I talk about the violence being accepted. And that I want to be very clear, too, because I know some people could be listening to us discussing this. Well, you know, there's people that support Democrats that are on the street, you know, throwing bottles of, you know, cop cars and stuff like that. And look, we don't condone violence by anybody. The difference, I think what we're saying here is that the political leadership talks like this on one side. They don't generally talk like that on the other side. Of course, there's riff raffs in every group and every organization and political, you know, thing. But like you said, we've got a governor of Florida who's running for president, United States. And he said, on day one, I'm going to slit their throats. Meaning talking about federal employees. We have a president of the United States or former president of the United States that when he was campaigning in 2016, told people in the crowds of his rallies that punch him in the face, I'll pay for your legal bills. These aren't.
[00:33:00] Speaker A: That's a good point because the comparison is you don't have Joe Biden out there telling demonstrators to go turn over police cars.
[00:33:07] Speaker B: Yeah, that's not what I mean.
[00:33:07] Speaker A: Like, it's not an analogous situation.
[00:33:10] Speaker B: People that support him might do that, and that's wrong. I'm not here to condone that. But what I'm saying is leadership's important and the direction that leaders go, we can see with the GOP, for example, that as they embraced a certain type of leader, a lot of people went that direction. And to the point, we've talked about this on different shows where by 2020, the party platform at their whole convention was like, we don't have a platform. It's whatever this man wants to do. And they put that in writing.
[00:33:41] Speaker A: And party platform is usually a pretty expansive thing.
[00:33:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:44] Speaker A: Where they go, like, it's all these things, all these, all the constituencies. Remember, all the coalitions that come together beforehand before the election in the United States States system, they all come together. And here's what we want. Here's what we want. You know, we're trying to get rid of this. We're trying to, you know, put this in. We're trying to get rid of Social Security or we're trying to get rid of abortion or all these things. The party platform is usually filled with all that kind of stuff. They just had one, whatever Trump said, you know, which is unprecedented in terms of modern politics.
[00:34:08] Speaker B: But think about going back to the economics. That's what ends up eventually. If you allow that to continue in a society, that's what necessarily leads to the misallocation of resources.
[00:34:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:18] Speaker B: Because how can you have an, a political party that is supposed to be serious in running a country, but like you said, doesn't lay out a bunch.
[00:34:26] Speaker A: Of, you know, if you have the person, the cult of personality, but it just doesn't go anywhere good.
[00:34:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:32] Speaker A: You know, is what kind of your point you can have it be, but that's just an admission that all we're, our organizing principle is this guy.
[00:34:39] Speaker B: But over time, you have a nice allocation of research.
[00:34:42] Speaker A: It doesn't go in a direction that's productive.
[00:34:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I'll say this is a joke because this was true. Remember, one of the big things that he really wanted to do as president was to start having military parades like they do in african countries and, you know, where they have dictators, or they do, like in Russia, like in fascist regimes. Yeah, like, to prove how tough we are. And I'm thinking, like, okay, so that'll be a billion dollars spent on one day with all that jet fuel and all that. And if you take those examples and multiply them out by just one person because they want to do something, and we're just going to now take the country in this direction, you can see how you can get a misallocation of resources, even though it seems orderly, because only one guy is running it, versus the current system we have, which may sometimes feel disorderly, but because you have so many different hands in the pot and actually people trying to compete to get the bottom line of profit and things like that, our system tend. That's why we won World War Two, because, like we said, right, let me just finish here. Hitler would not hire jews to build the atomic bomb and to be physicists because he hated jews. America had Jim Crow, but in the end, we'd done shows on Tuskegee airmen when they needed it. They still called up blacks and said, get in those planes and go fight. And that's the difference. It's just using the resources you have, you know, no matter what, to win, versus saying, I can only do this the pure way.
[00:36:03] Speaker A: Yeah. And you can extrapolate that out to economics. You can extrapolate out that to innovation, you know, all types of things, if you are. And that's one of the reasons in this country, you know, people push for getting more, getting everyone an opportunity to grow, you know, whether it be educationally and everything like that, is because we don't know who the people are in the next generation that are going to leap us forward. And if we got swaths of people who never get the opportunity, we're potentially closing the door on the someone who could, you know, solve this problem or that problem. So, you know, but before we get out of here on this topic, if.
[00:36:35] Speaker B: They don't look like me, it doesn't count. Remember that.
[00:36:38] Speaker A: We don't want it. That's the point, though. If they don't, if they don't fit this characteristic, then I don't want it. I'd rather die than have someone who doesn't look a certain way or pray the right God save the day. So. And that's, you know, that's very self defeating from a big picture standpoint. But, and that's, I'll say this just, you know, before we move. Like, that's one of the things to me, a lot of these things with the, the kind of setup in terms of what the academics say about fascism, they seem to be built around feeding ego and feeding the emotion of the people that are, you know, that are disillusioned or this leader. You know, like, it's about, it's not about substance. It's about, I can make you feel good, you know, and then, you know, once I'm making you feel good, I can kind of do whatever I want to do, you know, type of thing. And so that's one of the, again, that's distinct from a, just a run of the mill authoritarian system, which, again, fascism is an authoritarian system, but it's a specific kind. And it's different from the run of the mill, though, because you're not necessarily, you're just saying, hey, I got the military in a traditional or in a run of the mill authoritarian system. Hey, I got all the guns. Do what I say. You're not saying I'm going to make you feel good about being in this country because, again, nationalism is a part of it as well. I'm going to make you feel good about being a supporter of me. So then you'll follow me with this. So, you know, but the last thing I want to ask you on this is, where do you think in the United States this goes from here? Like I said, I don't think that step five, you know, according to the historian, I don't think they accomplished that. I think that was, in a sense, what was trying to happen with the elect overturning the election. But our laws, hell, you know, and we had people that they were. He wasn't able to, Trump wasn't able to change the things he needed to change to keep power once it looked like he was losing the election or once he lost the election. But where do you think we go from here?
[00:38:25] Speaker B: That's a great question. I mean, I don't know. I think we need to wait, honestly, another 18 months, because right now, former President Trump is number one in the polls on the GOP side. I mean, we got more than a year till the election, which is forever in politics. So I know that can change. But like you said, it didn't work, the January 6 thing, and it barely didn't work. You know, it's always certain individuals. Who knows if Mike Pence would have, you know, had he not behaved the way he did, how this would have looked. You know, we might have had martial law. Right. And so I think if President Trump wins the next election, he'll have learned from his mistakes, and, you know, it could be a totally different story. So I don't know where we go from here.
It doesn't feel good right now looking at where we are, because what I think, here's what I'd say. I got no idea where we go, and I'm not trying to predict it, but I think it's fascinating to watch this energy of, like, we've just gone through a conversation of drawing a line that there's one of two major political parties in this country which appears, I'm not gonna call them fascist 100%, but they have taken. They've gone down some fascist roads and taken down some. Some of their tendencies. And I find it fascinating that a country that has, in its first amendment, the freedom of the press, for example, and that the government can't suppress your speech, that we have this tension now where you have, in a free country, people with this energy trying to impose this type of way of being. And I think there's going to be a clash because the two can't coexist. Yeah.
[00:40:01] Speaker A: The clash is happening now. You see, with the attempt to impose rule of law on Donald Trump has led. There's people out there threatening judges, threatening jurors. I know, like, this is, like, this is a boiling point. This is something that could bring you to a boiling point, because if you have people that have gone, and, again, they haven't gone all the way there, but they've gone in a fascist direction, and you're going after the cult of personality head that could bring things to a head. You know, we don't know. You know, but I would say where this goes from here is unknowable at this point.
And I think not enough Americans recognize the depth of the threat that we're experiencing right now. And what I mean by that is that this is an honest goodness attempt to take out the democratic system that we have in place. This is like a real honest to goodness attempt. Like, not just, oh, if we have time, you know, maybe we'll do this. But no, it's like, look, we need the mindset of the people that are trying to take out our democratic system. We need to be the winner regardless of how the votes go. You know, and that's how, that's how you get away from free and fair elections. That's, you know, elections that are predetermined that's how Putin gets 90 something percent of the vote, you know, in his country. And that's. That's not necessarily an organic way that that happens. And so this is an honest to goodness goodness attempt, but because our nation is so partisan right now, there's a lot of people that cannot. They're just. Their cognitive dissonance won't allow them to see what's going on. And so. And then you have other people that, I think, underestimate the threat in the same way that you had the Germans looking at Hitler at the beginning, like, oh, this guy, you know, he has the people all fired up. We'll use that charisma, but we'll be able to control them. And so what I think is going to have to have to happen is that things are going to have to be brought to a head. I will say that a lot of Americans seem to have a sufficient level of distaste for a lot of the things that happens. But because there's a reinforcement, a constant reinforcement of how bad things are and how everything is going so poorly. Like, everybody thinks the economy's bad, even though the numbers say the economy is good. Like, there's this constant negative reinforcement of what's happening in the country that you always have to watch out for people falling into the ends justify the means mindset. And that may not be a coincidence that we're seeing this kind of play out like that, because ends justify the means is the only way, I think, that we actually slip into a fascist, more of a fascist type of a system. As long as I think there are enough Americans that have a distaste for the direction that this stuff would go, for the intimidation and the violence and stuff, that it wouldn't get there unless they thought that, hey, if it is critical race theory so important, keeping that out of school, so important that even if your leader lies, cheats, steals, threatens people, it's okay, because we got to keep critical race theory out of the school.
That's the kind of, like I said, that takes over where we could slip into a bad place, but that's where.
[00:43:00] Speaker B: The need to control at least certain organs of the media and to have the alternative universe, you know, the alternative facts, because you have to disturb people to really think that it is that bad if you don't win, meaning you as a fascist leader, that, yeah, if you don't elect me, then your kids are going to be taught crtinous while they're learning how to be trans, while, you know, some pedophile is the teacher, while this while that, you know, it's like always the worst of everything that can happen if you don't pick me.
[00:43:36] Speaker A: It's like a religious type of thing as well. That's what always reminds me, kind of.
[00:43:39] Speaker B: The cult of personality, you know?
[00:43:40] Speaker A: But, yeah, like in religion, oftentimes it's like whatever the spirit you're not supposed to, like, is described as the worst. All these terrible things, you know? And so it's like, this is what they're doing. Political people now is like all anything that's bad, this is what this person is. But I do want to get to the next topic. The second topic we want, the second topic we wanted to discuss today was ozempic and the new weight loss drugs, relatively new. I mean, ozempic was an anti diabetes drug. And then they have another one that is for weight loss specifically. But both of them have helped people lose a lot of weight. Obese people and then people not even obese these injections. And there's more coming online now. But basically, what is being observed with the use of these drugs? And one, I should say that the scientists admit they don't know 100% why the mechanisms on why it makes people lose the amount of weight that it does, but it does make people lose weight. And the more notable thing about it is that the way that it has people lose weight is that it seems to rewire their brains a bit where they eat less, they want to eat less, they're not hungry, and, oh, they're going through the deprivation, anything like that. They want to eat less and they're content eating less. And so it really has, in many respects, thrown the debate of, oh, people are overweight because they lack willpower or they're too lazy or they don't move around enough. It's throwing that on its head because now it's like, well, hold on. All these same people, if you give them this injection, then they no longer want to overeat. Then it changes kind of the way that they're functioning. So it's a question of biology versus willpower. Biology looks to have got the upper hand. So, Tony, what's your thoughts on Ozempic and this, you know, the kind of biology versus willpower debate or anything that's going around here?
[00:45:25] Speaker B: No, it's interesting, man. I think this is an interesting topic since it's so popular and it obviously works. Number one, it's interesting to see this, this kind of nature versus nurture discussion about weight and weight loss, because I know that just like we've learned, remember we've talked about this in different discussions, too. Things like alcoholism or drug addiction used to be seen as a, as a moral failing. And then scientific research and the medical community had us all now understand that these are actually like diseases and different way that some people's brains are made up, right?
[00:46:01] Speaker A: Like you and I signaling in their brain.
[00:46:03] Speaker B: You and I can drink beer or glass of whiskey and be fine. Someone else does it, and they are an alcoholic. You know, they're eating every day from there. Yeah. So I think it's something similar. That's what I find interesting about it, that obviously researchers are looking at the human body all the time. And like you said about this ozempic, being able to either add to or manipulate one of the hormones in our bodies that regulates certain things, like maybe the urge to eat, or how we metabolize things and process things. So I think what this could do, I think in a positive way, for people that are obese and have not been able to have any relief any other way, is maybe allow them to lose weight and participate in society in a different way, when maybe they were genuinely trying to lose weight and they couldn't. Because, and again, we look, meaning not me and you, but our society has looked at obesity as a moral failure, just like it did with, with alcoholism and addiction, because the moral failing is all you're, you're sloppy, you're undisciplined, you eat too much. But again, medical research has now shown that that's not necessarily the case. And you said it offline to me on a private conversation. How many people are thin and eat like crap constantly, you know, drink alcohol. So, so being slim versus being obese isn't about necessarily all the time. Sometimes it could be about habits, but other times it's just about how your body is made up. And so this thing would allow people to live different lifestyles where they can exercise and healthier.
[00:47:30] Speaker A: Like, you remember, a lot of money is spent on the, the diabetes stuff and all that kind of stuff. And if you reduce the weight, you can, you can reduce that, I think. I mean, on one hand, this is like a miracle drug.
I remember, I've been interested in fitness forever, and all the bodybuilding magazines and athletic men's health, all that kind of stuff. People are always looking for, oh, you just take this and then your body just gets in great shape. You work out with it, but you do this and you lean up and all that, or lean out all that. So it seems like that. But there's a couple of things. And one of the mechanisms that seem to be at play is a concept I've read about in the past year or two, is called the weight set point, where your body kind of sets a, here's the weight I want to be, and then it modulates your consumption, energy consumption and energy use to get to that weight and stay at that weight. And so what this is able to do, presumably, or what some of the explanations I've read that people are, their hypothesis or maybe even a theory at this point is that this is changing the weight set point. It's lowering their weight set point so their body then gets on the all aligned on the program like we want to be. Instead of being at 300 pounds, we want to be at 220, you know, or something like that. And so which would then your body does the rest and say, okay, we decided we want to be at 220, so we're going to change your habits, you know, without you knowing, to get you to 220. And with the concept of the weight set point, the thing, I think this raises another question, though, that is not answered at all. I don't even hear people asking this question, well, what happened in the United States and other, I guess, countries where this is an issue, this isn't all over the world where everybody's obese. This is like a few countries where this is happening. So what happened to cause so many people's weight set point to get thrown off? And so it has to be more going on? That's the real mystery to unravel here.
[00:49:15] Speaker B: Though, is because then you got to look at the food industry lobbying system and, come on, that's too much. Let's go just take this drug.
[00:49:21] Speaker A: There'd be a lot of culprits for that.
[00:49:22] Speaker B: But, yeah, you're asking too many questions here.
[00:49:26] Speaker A: I guess I am, because I'm like, well, hold up. What happened to every, why did all these people's weight set point get thrown off in the first place? Like, that's, to me, that's the natural question here. If the answer is because part of the problem with the drugs is that what they've seen so far is that your weight set point will change down to whatever, something else. It'll go down. But then if you get off the drug, what they've seen so far is your weight set point will go back up. So then you have to start depriving yourself again. If you want to stay at the lower weight, you won't just stay there because your body's. Then you're, the spell is broken, so to speak. Now that may be the drug industry talking, though, so I don't know. But I haven't tried. I haven't tried the drug. So I don't know what happens to people. But ultimately, it's just interesting to me that it's like, well, there was something happened in the 1950s through eighties that threw off everybody's or, you know, a large number of people's weight set point. And what is that?
[00:50:15] Speaker B: That's called trans fats, processed food, fast.
[00:50:19] Speaker A: Food, probably all the answers we already have. You're right.
[00:50:22] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. That's. There's a lot going on there. But, you know, it's another cute fun fact I found and just preparing for this, that Ozempic is made by a company called Norvo Nordisk, which is a.
[00:50:36] Speaker A: You're about to talk at our market cap.
[00:50:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
From Denmark. And the freaking, the thing so popular now, their market cap of the company, which is the value of the shares times the amount of shares outstanding. So basically, the value of the company is now equal to the. No, it's. It's actually surpassed. Greater than the entire country's GDP.
[00:50:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Which is their entire home country.
[00:51:00] Speaker B: They have 400 billion.
[00:51:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:51:01] Speaker B: Like, damn, I thought Denmark put out a little more than that.
[00:51:05] Speaker A: Denmark is tiny.
[00:51:06] Speaker B: I know, but, I mean, we're putting out, like 25 trillion a year in GDP. I thought they were, like, maybe a trillion, something like that.
[00:51:12] Speaker A: But, hey, it's just this. This company will be.
[00:51:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I appreciate that. Danes brought us, you know, the modern corporation and fractional banking. So they did a lot historically. They taught the British how to do it, but the Dutch East India Company and all that. But it's just fascinating that one company with this drug now has a greater value than what their country produces, at.
[00:51:40] Speaker A: Least in the overweight countries of the world. This is like the holy grail. My mind, I was like, huh? Now, this doesn't solve the issue of having, like, a toned body. You know, like, people who like to exercise and people who like to have muscle definition and stuff like that. This doesn't do that for anybody. But I'm like, man, I enjoy working out, so this isn't something I would want, but I hope they don't come up with some injection. You start taking this injection and your muscles start bulging out. You get all swollen and stuff like that because this is just mind blowing from that standpoint. The other thing that I'll say, man, I can be done after this. But I had to say it. You mentioned this to me, and I was laughing about it for, like an hour after we got off the phone because it just cracked me up. And it was, you were talking about how, how many people were vaccine skeptics but that are fully on board with the ozempic? All these people that were so, so many experts on vaccine science, but no questions asked on this yo work. Give that to me.
[00:52:38] Speaker B: It shows you the importance of messengers. Yeah, it also shows, I mean, look, I can appreciate, and this is not about messengers. We have a good streak in our country of not trusting authority and not wanting the government to tell us what to do. So I guess, you know, people started feeling and getting, whether it was true or imagined, felt like someone else was telling them they had to take the vaccine. Versus I guess Ozempic is just, it's out there and you can choose to take it.
[00:53:04] Speaker A: But to your point, there's like a shortage. You need a prescription, so it's actually harder to get. So it's probably making more people want.
[00:53:10] Speaker B: Yeah, you're right. People feel like they're on the outside. They gotta get in.
[00:53:13] Speaker A: And let me tell you this, though, in response to that, I'll tell you this. I think that if Joe Biden or Donald Trump tried to make, tried to make everybody take ozempic, I still don't think you'd have the same pushback. Cause I just think weight is something, I mean, obviously it's a societal thing. Every, people be like, okay, I don't know, let's see, overweight, like I said. I mean, obviously somebody like you, we wouldn't want you'd be gone have you on that thing.
[00:53:44] Speaker B: Yeah, my wife's already worried that I'm, that I'm, that I'm losing too much weight and what's wrong with me. But, um, no, it's, it's funny because it, and, and even though, like we said, there's probably some psychology that's true behind what we said about being, feeling like you're told to do something versus something else, feeling like it's scarce, you know, there's scarcity, but I just feel like. But it's the same thing, which is you're injecting your body with something that was made by a pharmaceutical company and you got no idea what's in it. And it's just one people run into it and the other was like, oh, there's gonna be nanobots and 5g.
Every single cell phone, I think, is 5g.
[00:54:21] Speaker A: But remember, this was my point then. If they wanted to put something in a shot that was gonna throw you off, it wouldn't be in the COVID vaccine. It would either be in, it'd be in something like this.
Yo, we get everybody with this, but not, but, but I mean, it's, it's, like I said, it's still great. It's great that people are having better health, health outcomes, and then we'll see how this plays out in society. But it's, I mean, it's quite remarkable. But we close up from there. We appreciate everybody for joining us on this episode of call like I see it. Subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review us. Tell us what you think. Send it to a friend. Until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:54:54] Speaker B: I'm tune, Dago and Lana.
[00:54:55] Speaker A: All right. We'll talk to you next time.
